Our annual team dinner, held this evening at Smithills Coaching House, was judged a tremendous success. 92 team members and guests attended, including representatives of GMAS, LAS, CVSRT and many of our supporters, including 2 out of the original 7 founder members from way back in 1968.
As usual our team leader hosted an evening of formal and informal awards (our own “Gotchas”), with a competition to guess the length of his after dinner speech (1 hour 37 minutes) raising £83.50 for team funds. A donation of £10 from Mrs. Pat Baxendale was also received. A raffle, featuring the top prize of a video recorder, along with a Karrimor limited donated jacket, and many other prizes (over 50!) raised a further £244.
The Stanley Award for most promising new team member went to Dave Sarti of Brinscall, a 36 year old company director with Marshalls plc.
The Howard Hill Memorial Tankard award for the person or persons making the most outstanding contribution to the Team over the previous year went to Steven Fletcher, the 21 year old designer and webmaster of our teams website, for his considerable efforts in establishing and maintaining the site.

Final numbers 103 members of the public, at least 5 dogs, team members and approximately 40 people on horseback climbed Rivington Pike. We needed 50 people to walk from bottom barn to the Pike to climb the same height as Everest. So we managed to climb Everest twice. pic.twitter.com/vx13wRpn8E

We smashed 64 members of the public and 4 dogs have so far climbed the Rivington Pike. We needed 50 people to walk from bottom barn to climb the same height as Everest. Let’s see if we can get 100 people and climb it twice. pic.twitter.com/1FzzCRVet5

Runners and walkers are the group at most risk of accidental drowning in the UK - 77 people died in 2016 because they fell in the water whilst out for a run or a walk #BeWaterAwarepic.twitter.com/AfUVuX1WGz